Breadcrumbs

This dataset consists of 107 days of vessel tracking using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) at 1 hour intervals extracted for the Queensland region from the Spatial@AMSA Historic Vessel Tracking website (AMSA 2013). It has been converted to Shapefile format and contains just under 1 million points.
Note: The Spatial@AMSA Historic Vessel Tracking website is no longer available, however similar and more recent data is now available from Spatial@AMSA Vessel Tracking Data website (https://www.operations.amsa....gitalData).
Vessel tracking data is used to support coastal traffic management, search and rescue response and to meet requirements for safety and protection of the maritime environment. A valuable data set for marine use studies.
The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is an automatic tracking system used on ships and by vessel traffic services (VTS) for identifying and locating vessels by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships, AIS base stations, and satellites. Each vessel regularly transmits its position ranging from 3 minutes for anchored or moored vessels, to 2 seconds for fast moving or manoeuvring vessels.
This dataset only contains vessel positions at approximately 1 hour internals. Even so each vessel can contribute many data points.
Class A transceivers have been mandated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for vessels of 300 gross tonnage and upwards engaged on international voyages, cargo ships of 500 gross tonnage and upwards not engaged on international voyages, as well as passenger ships (more than 12 passengers), irrespective of size. Class A transceivers are stronger, have priority transmissions and transmit more frequently then Class B transceivers.
Class B transceivers provide limited functionality and is intended for non-SOLAS vessels. It is not mandated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and has been developed for non-SOLAS commercial and recreational vessels.
The Historic Vessel Tracking Spatial@AMSA website provides a data download of historic vessel positions from April 2009 to current time minus 2 weeks.
The original data was downloaded through the Spatial@AMSA Historic Vessel Tracking Request website (https://www.operations.amsa....ngRequest). Due to limitations in the maximum size of the download, the data was requested in 3 day lots, using CSV download format and "Select by State" of QLD. All of the CSV files were compiled together using Notepad++, then loaded into ArcMap using Add Data / Add XY. This was then exported as a shapefile. This resulted in a very large shapefile as each of the columns were made excessively large (254 characters) by this process. To reduce the size of the shapefile a duplicate column was setup for each of the text attributes, except this time the size was set to just fit the data in. The data was copied to the new column using the field calculator and the original field deleted. This process reduced the database file of the shapefile from 1.4 GB to 170 MB.
Note that due to a limitation of the shapefile format the high resolution time stamps of vessels did not come out in the shapefile. This information is however available in the CSV version.
This dataset only contains information available from the Historic Vessel Tracking Spatial@AMSA website and only contains the ships course, speed, heading, ship name and if it is piloted. It does not contain information about the ship's length, breadth, cargo or status.
The e-Atlas has not confirmed what types of vessels this dataset contains however it probably contains most AIS Class A and some Class B vessels.
Format:
This dataset is available in Comma Separated Value (CSV) (80 MB) and Shapefile format (178 MB).
Data Dictionary:
CSV file:
Not a lot is known about the fields of this dataset as they come from AMSA undocumented. Values in brackets are typical values.
- CourseDegrees: (0, 331.3, 184)
- CraftType: (Vessel)
- FixTime: (9/05/2013 21:13)
- Heading: Heading of the vessel in integer degrees, sometime there is no value (284)
- IsPilotedVoyage: Boolean (FALSE, TRUE)
- Latitude, Longitude: Vessel position in decimal degrees (-23.75092333, 151.1676367)
- Name: Vessel id (NOMADIC MILDE, SMIT KULLAROO, HYUNDAI SUCCESS)
- ReportingAgentName: (AMSA, AIS)
- Speed: unknown units (0, 13.2)
Shapefile:
These are the same values as for the CSV but renamed to fit limitations of shapefiles: CouseDegr, Heading, Latitude, Longitude, Speed, NameB, IsPiloted, FixTimeB, Reporting.
References:
Australian Maritime Safety Authority. (2013) Historical Vessel Tracking. Spatial@AMSA, [CSV data file]. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Australia. Available: https://www.operations.amsa....ngRequest. Accessed 6 September 2013

This extract was made for looking at shipping density along the GBR and the Torres Strait.